Second Bucolic: The Property of Virgil on the Banks of the Mincio 1955

Jacques Villon made this landscape scene, "Second Bucolic," with crayon or pastel. I can imagine Villon smudging these soft colors and marks into place; the surface is alive with so much gentle energy! It feels like a kind of dream, as if the whole scene is emerging from the imagination. There is an incredibly subtle sense of movement and fluidity as the herd travels along the river. The yellow tones of the cows really draw my eye through the painting. What was he thinking, I wonder? Was he remembering other landscape paintings by artists like Poussin and Claude, or trying to make something totally new? There is something so fresh about it, but also timeless in the way the trees meet the sky. He's almost daring to make a painting, and I love that. I wonder what he was listening to while he made it!